Creative Impulse 2000

Software NO longer available

by Birte Hilberg, the program developer

To better understand how Creative Impulse 2000 works it
is useful to know the basic principles of the program. Before you start
using the program it is recommended that you read the README.txt file
and print the WELCOME.doc file or read the "Before you begin" section
in the Help file. The Help file not only includes all information to run
the program, it also contains plenty of useful illustrations.

The 220 tiles distributed with Creative Impulse 2000 give
you a good foundation for creating designs, but you can easily extend
the tile library by making new tiles yourself. All drawing is done on
the "drawing board" and you only need to draw one copy of each tile. While
you are drawing new tiles or making alterations to old ones, full designs
made from these tiles are shown in a design window in the background and
you can see all versions of the tile you draw in the "Show all active
tiles" window.

Creative Impulse 2000 automatically rotates each tile
you draw first 90, then 180 and 270 degrees to create four versions
of it. The program then mirrors the tile you drew and rotates this mirrored
tile 90, 180 and 270 degrees to get a total of eight versions. The eight
versions are stored as one tile.

For drawing tiles you can use one or a combination of
the following tools:

You can draw Straight lines, Circles or Arcs
of Circles and freehand drawing.

You can use the Bezier tool to draw straight
lines allowing you to move or bend lines or for swapping hatching
(colours). Note all tiles that come with the program have
been drawn with the Bezier tool.

For precise drawing choose a grid.

For colouring your tile a palette of 16 colours
is at hand in a choice of solid colours or hatchings, the
colours can easily be changed later.

When you have finished making a new tile in
one or more colour variants you save the tile and it is added
to the tile library.

DESIGNS

When you are happy with your new tile and you have saved it, you can close the
drawing board and begin to explore the potential of the new tile by creating designs.
Click the New Design command: and a new design
is shown. You can click as many times you want or you can choose the Automatic
method (File|Other design commands|Automatic designs), which means that the program
will create a new pattern every five seconds. When you see a pattern you like,
you can simply click the mouse once to stop seeing new patterns and you can then
save the design to have it added to the design library. To see the designs in
the design library as mini designs click Show all designs .

HOW DOES THE PROGRAM CREATE YOUR DESIGNS?

The following
illustrates how the computer would create a design from one tile in one colour
combination using the eight versions and the Mirror 2x2 method that is default
setting when creating new tiles. The many other design methods work in a similar
way.

Think of it like this:

The computer puts the 8 tiles into a hat.

The
computer picks 4 of these tiles out of the hat at random (note that each tile
can be picked out of the hat more than once).

The computer
places copies of the 4 picked tiles in a setting of 2 by 2 tiles in the top-left
corner of the window. Figure 1.

The computer mirrors
the tiles along the vertical and horizontal sides forming a 4 by 4 block. Figure
2.

· The program repeats this, filling up the window with as many blocks
as will fit. Figure 3.

Figure
1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Note
that the designs above are shown without tile outlines, you can remove and add
tile outlines as often you like, using this icon .

Each time you click on Make design this
process is repeated.

You can put more tiles into
your hat by adding colour variations to your tile. Each colour variation
gives you a new set of 8 tiles. You can also read more tiles into the window.
So instead of choosing 4 tiles amongst the 8 tiles you could have a choice between
16, 24, 32 or more tiles.

Making beautiful designs like this may seem
a bit like winning the lottery, but if you study your design and decide that you
want to replace a tile with another tile you need not go on clicking for ever
until the program hits the jackpot. Instead, you can use the Edit command, which
contains options for:

Swapping one tile in a design at a time. (An
easier way for swapping tiles is to use the "Show all active tiles" command .
This command can also be used for building designs from scratch.)

Shifting
rows and columns.

Resizing the tiles, the squares can be turned into
rectangles.

Cutting away parts of a pattern and moving a pattern.

The
Method command contains a large selection of design methods, which you
can select at any time. If you for instance click on Rotate 2x2 the way
the program makes patterns is changed. Four tiles are picked at random and placed
in the top-left corner in a 2 by 2 block and are then repeated in a rotating manner
(not mirrored as before).

A Method such as Repeat 1x1 picks
just one tile out of the hat, places it in the top-left corner and repeats it.
You can also have all tiles in a design picked at random, amongst other options.

COLOURS

Colours
are the most important ingredients in any design. If the colours are "wrong" in
an otherwise perfect design you won't want to use the design for anything. Creative
Impulse 2000 can help you find the right colours - either by "suggesting" new
colour combinations or by letting you choose the individual colours yourself.
(The colours that you choose, when you colour your new tile needn't necessarily
suit each other, they are simply used to decide which pieces in the tile shall
have the same colour.)

The Colour commands give you options for changing
one colour at a time or changing them all at the same time.

Click on Make
new colours and all the colours
in your design are changed into new randomly picked colours. You can keep clicking
on this button until you find a colour combination you like.

Clicking on
Make 1 new colourallows you to randomly change just one colour
of your choice.

Finding the right set of colours using these
two commands may sound somewhat long-winded, but seeing designs in many colour
combinations is extremely useful for discovering new features within the design.
You might even be tempted to use colour combinations you never thought you would!

If
you know which colours you want, you can quickly make them using the Colour
mixer. The Colour mixer works by letting you blend the three primary colours
- red, green and blue. The Colour mixer also comes with a palette. You can interactively
change colours one at a time - instantly seeing your pattern with the new colours.

THE
EFFECT COMMANDS:

The Effect command gives you access to a large
number of special effects for "distorting" your designs. These are very simple
to use and include effects such as: zigzag, waves, ripples, parabola, flagstone
designs, kaleidoscope and circle. The Effect command also includes the Import
bmp file command that allows you to use bitmap files in designs. When you
choose an effect, you can customize how it operates. For example, you can choose
how many sides your kaleidoscope has or the period and amplitude of the zigzag
effect. You can add up to fifty Effects to any design in any order you
choose - this can produce some truly amazing designs. The Set effects area
command changes all other Effects commands to work within a rectangular area of
your choice in any design.

If you regret an Effect you just click the Undo
button or you can delete any effect in the Show design information window. (The Show
design information is a tool of great value, as it reveals exactly how every single
design was created.)

In Setup|Open configuration|Birte.cci you will find
400 designs that were all created using one or more Effect commands.

Birte's
Gallery shows a handful of wall hangings that she created with the Effects commands
at: www.creativeimpulse2000.com/.
Click the back button in the browser to return to this page.

Making a
design with effects - step by step:

To show just how easy it is to
create exciting patterns with Creative Impulse 2000, we will now illustrate how
quickly a simple pattern can be miraculously changed using the Effect command.

Read/open a tile (for example the one called "2000A.tci").

Choose
a tile size of say, 144 by 144 pixels.

Click the Make design icon: the
program will make a new pattern (for example it might look like the one in figure
4).

Add the Cubic effect (this makes your pattern look like figure 5).

Then apply the Circle effect (figure 6).

You will now have
a very interesting design, but there are plenty more options available. For example
you can just click the Make design icon: and Creative Impulse 2000 will make a
new design, automatically applying the effects you chose to the design.

Whenever
you create a design that you like Save it: The files are very
small (about 1k each), so you neednt worry about filling up your hard disk.

Other
options include:

Changing the size of the
tiles (figures 7 and 8)

Changing the design method.

Changing the colours or adding bitmap files.

Reading
more tiles into the window.

Add or remove effects.

Swapping
the tiles with new tiles. To do that:

Click on Clear , the text in the title bar says Untitled
(Effect) indicating that the Effects are still active.

Open the Show
all tile window
and select new tiles.

Click Make design.

To
illustrate another aspect of Creative Impulse 2000, we have chosen to apply the
Circle effect before applying the Cubic effect. This produces a totally different
pattern, as seen in figure 9. Of course there is no reason not to apply the Cubic
effect both before and after applying the Circle effect! Experimentation is the
key to finding new and exciting designs - and don't forget that if you regret
applying an effect, you can simply choose to undo it or if you regret some of
the earlier effects you can delete them in the Show design information
window .

Figure 9 The Circle effect was applied to Figure
4 before the Cubic Effect!

Creative Impulse 2000 has far more Effect commands than we have
mentioned so far. Three of the most useful commands are Move up, Mirror and Repeat.
With these you could, for example, choose to move the pattern in, say figure 6
up to the top left of the screen and then repeat or mirror it across the entire
screen.

THE USE OF IMPORT BITMAP FILES

The Show all bitmap files
shows 175 small 256 colour bitmap files. You can extend the bitmap library by
scanning your own images and save them as bitmap files or you can import any bitmap
file in any number of colour.

The Effect command contains three options
for adding bitmap files to designs. You can choose to work with just one of them
or you can mix them.

Bitmap files can be embedded anywhere you want in
your design or as in the example below into an empty large window.

Original bitmap embedded in the top left corner of the window.

The bitmap was then mirrored filling up the entire window.

The Kaleidoscope effect was used to create this design that can be used for original
postcards.

Bitmap files can replace colours.

Original design.

The white colour was replaced with a bitmap file that was a picture of a tomato!

Bitmap files can also be inserted into a chosen area.

Elaborate
Effect Commands

Some of the more elaborate Effect commands involve two
or more designs. You can Capture a design (effectively storing it on the computer's
memory), open another design and then try one of the following options:

Overlay: this command works by putting a semitransparent copy of one
design on top of the other.

Border: this command adds a border
to the design you captured.

Merge: This creates a sort of chessboard
effect from two patterns.

Cut: This lets you literally cut holes
in the last read design, so that the one you captured shows through. (Note this
command also works when only one design is active). There are plenty of examples
to be found in the Help file.

Of course: Creative Impulse 2000
lets you combine all of these Effect commands together in any order you choose.

Printing

Printing Creative Impulse 2000 has a very powerful
printing engine, the most important feature of which is the ability to print any
design in any size - if you choose a size that won't fit on a sheet of paper,
the program will simply spread the output over many sheets.